Weekly blog from November 19th

I saw some pretty cool probes for the ti calculators. The motion detector was the coolest. I wish I had had it earlier in the semester in physics. I would have tried to capture the essence of the slope of a distance vs. time graph in my motion. The ti technology seemed pertinent in a way other technologies have not. Since these calculators will be in the classroom any help in using them to help bring alive the math or science they are used for is welcome.
Is is a conspiracy that ti calculators are so clunky? It is a little like using dos. I later thought of the possibility of getting the calculator to calculate your velocity and graph that against time. I might be wrong but I suspect the calculator could not do that. I think ti will have a day of reckoning when pda's and laptops get close to the $100.00 mark. Running those probes through a computer with fathom would be sweet. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth I learned I will need to become familiar with all the ti probes and have ways of using them creatively.
I want to take the time to look into all the probes and perhaps those usb hook ups can be used with a pc.
To beat a dead horse I think the motion detector added a new dimension to the often dimensionless Cartesian coordinate graph. The motion detector and Robin's demo were a power full use of technology.